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27+ Werke 1,054 Mitglieder 14 Rezensionen Lieblingsautor von 1 Lesern

Über den Autor

G. W. Bowersock is professor emeritus of ancient history at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. His most recent book is From Gibbon to Auden: Essays on the Classical Tradition.

Werke von G. W. Bowersock

Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (1999) — Herausgeber — 263 Exemplare
Julian the Apostate (1978) 113 Exemplare
Roman Arabia (1983) 100 Exemplare
The Crucible of Islam (2017) 66 Exemplare
Hellenism in Late Antiquity (1990) 58 Exemplare
Martyrdom and Rome (1995) 35 Exemplare
Augustus and the Greek World (1965) 25 Exemplare

Zugehörige Werke

The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: I - Greek Literature (1985) — Mitwirkender, einige Ausgaben60 Exemplare
Petra Rediscovered: The Lost City of the Nabataean Kingdom (2003) — Mitwirkender — 47 Exemplare
The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations (1988) — Mitwirkender — 39 Exemplare
Caesar Augustus: Seven Aspects (Clarendon Paperbacks) (1984) — Mitwirkender — 30 Exemplare
Rethinking the Mediterranean (2005) — Mitwirkender — 17 Exemplare
Tacitus and the Tacitean tradition (1993) — Mitwirkender — 11 Exemplare
The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations (1986) — Mitwirkender — 11 Exemplare

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The book is set out more or less as a chronological biography from Julian's birth to his accession to the throne as sole Augustus in 361. From there, it takes on a more thematic aspect as it describes his policies and movements throughout his time in Naissus, Constantinople and then on to Antioch, where the narrative picks up again and swiftly carries the emperor to his greatest triumph - against the Sassanid Persians at their own capital of Ctesiphon - and his final end on the return journey.

The major downside to this work is Bowersock's clear, at times vitriolic disdain for the Emperor Julian and many of his policies. In the early part of the book, he writes seemingly as an apologist for Constantius II, portraying him in a far more favourable light than most other historians of the period. He castes Julian in the mold of a zealot and a bigot, and eventually as a persecutor of Christians, something which most historians stop short of. This is not the book one should read first on Julian, as I can imagine it would colour one's views irrevocably against the man.

Despite this, however, Bowersock's writing is clear, his style engaging, and his research clearly meticulous. If one is able to see beyond the surface layer of strongly opinionated commentary, an incredible amount of knowledge in a short run of pages (only 119 for the main section) is revealed. For that reason, this is a must-read for anyone with a solid background knowledge of Julian, looking to learn more.
… (mehr)
 
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KatherineJaneWright | 3 weitere Rezensionen | Jul 17, 2022 |
Oxford University Press as publisher was already a good hint that this wouldn't be an easy read, but I love to learn completely random facts about the world that are thoroughly reviewed and that I'll never need again, so I'm fine with that.

The topic itself is pretty obscure: A pre-islamic conflict between jewish Arabs in the territory of today's Yemen and christian Ethiopians at the other side of the Red Sea that is in the end not much more than a proxy war between the Byzantine and the Persian empires.

Bowerstock analyses and explains meticulously the body of source material, the power structure in the region, the influence of outside and historical powers like the Roman, Meroitic and Egyptian empires and the development of the conflict.

The lessons? Propaganda is everything, it's not about religion, and every aggressor always has good reasons.
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½
 
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DeusXMachina | 1 weitere Rezension | Mar 2, 2020 |
This is not a history of early Islam so much as an attempt to position early Islam in the surrounding cultures. I found it quite interesting.

I read this in German. The translation reads smoothly.
 
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MarthaJeanne | 1 weitere Rezension | May 5, 2019 |
The core thread of these lectures is an argument that the Greek novel,which flourished from the late first century to the fourth, draws themes and ideas from then-nascent Christianity. It can get useful to have a reference to the novels themselves on hand (such as Reardon's). Overall, an interesting if shortish book, covering texts which are not part of the most common classical education (with the one exception of the Philoctetes).
½
 
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jsburbidge | 1 weitere Rezension | Nov 9, 2018 |

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